La jefatura indígena, hoy

Abstract

The contrast between internal and external chieftainship has for a long time served to isolate the analysis of indigenous leadership in the classical meaning from those unauthentic forms of leadership imposed by contact with economical, political and religious agents from outside the group. But these external chieftainships are remarkable for their duration, diversity, and tradition, while the balance between internal and external in native sociology has been reconsidered. Leadership forms tied to white society or to the city can no longer be regarded as epiphenomena of the 'contact'; they form the subject of autobiographies of their protagonists, and a central element in the recounting of transformations that their groups have experienced in the recent past.